Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Costco Observations and Crystal Ball

Alakazam! Gaze into my crystal ball...

So I was returning something at Costco last night. And as I was waiting in line I was observing the shopping cart contents of the patrons leaving. This was Monday night around 7pm at a fairly affluent area. Over about 15 minutes, I scanned at least 20 shoppers and I found that around 95% of their shopping carts contained ordinary food stuffs. Cheese, soda, water, fruits, vegetables, and similar items.

The interesting thing I noted was there wasn't any big purchasers of electronics, toys, clothes, tools, or luxury item.

Maybe I'm making a mountain out of a mole hill. But I was expecting at least more shoppers would be be playing Santa and buying something nice for Christmas. The only obvious non-food purchase I saw was a cyber dog with a carrying bag. CRAP alert!

Maybe people are doing serious belt tightening due to the falling stock market, and the rising oil prices, and the falling dollar. Or maybe I was at the store at an odd hour plus it was a weeknight.

Are you looking to spend less for the Christmas list this year?

1 comment:

frugal zeitgeist said...

Not really. My Christmas list is small: sister and I are buying a couple of gift certificates for dinner for our parents, and SO and are are exchanging gifts. (We set our gift budget for each other at $50.)

Costco is great. I love that place!